Yes, in the directorate, and this has to do with the regional superintendents and their support staff and the social workers located in communities. I just wanted to say that my experience with the social workers in my constituency is very good. They are good front line people, but they always seem to be complaining about being overworked and underpaid.
It seems that there are some unfunded positions, and they need to have some more permanent positions there. I say this because as of June 1994 the highway to Wrigley will be open. The community of Wrigley has talked to me a number of times and said that they have a concern that once you open a road into a remote community like that, there is easy access for all kinds of goods and services as well as problems.
So they are anticipating that they are going to be getting into some problems and they would like to be ready for any anticipated problems as a result of the opening of the road. They foresee social problems accelerating or increasing as a result of more contact with the outside world with the road being readily available.
So they want to sit down with the department and try to come to some understanding on how to best deal with their upcoming connection to the outside world. So this is one area where they have requested that they have an additional social worker in that community to try to deal with the upcoming social problems.
I just wanted to make these comments so that the Minister and the senior staff will know that I am aware of the situation in my constituency. I always do my homework, I talk to everybody, so I am aware of the situation. I am not trying to be negative about this and I know that they are trying to do their job, but there are a lot of problems coming up more and more, and they seem to be understaffed.
At the same time there is no real permanent position there. They seem to be functioning on a borrowed type of positions, and if some of these unfunded positions become permanent it will at least provide some security there.
As for the position in Liard, there is one position you have in that community of 300 or 400, and there, again, are accelerating social problems.
You have good staff in the region, in the communities, but I am afraid with the sustained level of work that they are doing, at this rate, you are going to have some burn-outs. The department should look at that possibility. It is coming too close to that. The signals are there, and I just wanted to emphasize to the department that they have to look at that situation as well in the communities.
This type of social work is very demanding and very stressful. When you have educated people in the field providing the service, the department has to take a look at it and see where they can help in all ways. That's just a comment, Mr. Chairman. I would appreciate a response from the Minister to my comments. Thank you.